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Updates and Nonsense …

Everywhere I went in cyberspace, trolling for the perfect piece of little known, below-the-fold news to write about tonight, I ran into new information about other posts I have written in the past few days. Finally, I threw my hands up, as it is getting late, I am tired, and said, “okay … I’ll do a post of updates”. And so it happened that this post came to be called updates and nonsense, for it also includes a couple of tidbits that don’t even have the right to be called news, yet they were.

The Story: The Face of a Monster published Tuesday afternoon, about the New York Times’ coverage of white supremacist Tony Hovater and his outwardly appearing normalcy. The controversy that arose among the public was that the Times was trying to normalize haters, but nothing could have been further from the truth … the point was that they look just like us.

The Update: After the story ran in the Times on Saturday, Mr. Hovater says that he, his wife and brother-in-law all lost their jobs on Monday morning. He further claims that he and his wife, Maria, are in the process of moving out of their home for financial and safety reasons. They could no longer afford to pay the rent, he said, and somebody had published their home address online, endangering their safety. After Hovater was fired, his supporters launched a crowdfunding campaign through a website called Goyfundme.com, an alternative crowd-funding site modeled after GoFundMe, to raise money for him and his wife. The site has raised over $8,000 as of this writing.

According to the website, the Times article “resulted in a smear campaign” against Hovater and his wife. It claimed that “communists, antifa, and general basement-dwelling ne’er-do-wells set to work immediately, identifying their place of employment and harassing their management into terminating them.”

The Story: A New Low published Wednesday, about Donald Trump re-tweeting videos purporting to show Muslims committing violence, but at that time at least one had been disproven. The original videos were posted by far-right, marginalized politician Jayda Fransen, affiliated with the group Britain First. I noted in this piece that I seriously doubted Trump knew anything about Ms. Fransen or her background.

The Update: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who had previously stated it did not matter whether the videos were legitimate or not, said on Thursday that rump did not know that Jayda Fransen was a leader of the ultranationalist group Britain First when he shared her anti-Muslim videos on Twitter. AHA!!!! I knew it … he did not even take the time to find out what he was tweeting, just went with it! She went on to say that she wasn’t sure if Trump had even viewed the videos before re-tweeting.

Across the pond, British Prime Minister Theresa May, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and several Members of Parliament had sharply criticized Trump’s action, with more than one calling for his invitation for a state visit to be rescinded. Trump fired back to Ms. May that she should stay focused on the terrorist threat in her own country. The White House is spinning it to say that even if the content is fake, the point is to draw attention to the underlying issue of radical Islamic extremism. I cry FOUL! The role of the office Trump currently occupies is to act with integrity. Tweeting falsehoods, etiology unknown, and then saying it doesn’t matter whether it was true or false, is the action of a 5-year-old child!

The Story:Roy Moore – The ‘Values’ Candidatepublished 10 November about the many reasons in addition to the sexual assault and pedophilia charges, that Mr. Moore is an illegitimate candidate for the Senate seat he is seeking in the upcoming 12 December election.

The Update: In 2011, Roy Moore co-authored a ‘study course’ titled “Law and Government: An Introductory Study Course,”, that instructs students that women should not be permitted to run for elected office. If women do run for office, the course argues, people have a moral obligation not to vote for them. The course is also critical of the women’s suffrage movement, which in 1920 secured some American women the right to vote. The rationale for these ideas? “Egalitarian feminism is a false ideology that has bred false doctrine in the church and seduced many believers.” Surely we have returned to the early 19th century!!! There is considerably more, but it is too depraved for me, and too lengthy for this post, however if you are interested, check out the article in ThinkProgress

And now for the strange …

2nd Amendment Run Amok: Two weeks after doing away with its minimum age requirement, the State of Wisconsin issued 1,800 licenses to children 9 or younger. Of those, 52 were issued to children under five years old, and 10 were issued to infants under one year old! Seriously????????? What are they smoking up there in Wisconsin?

RSVP Declined; Sending Regrets: CNN announced on Tuesday that they will not attend this year’s White House Christmas Party. “In light of the President’s continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN, we do not feel it is appropriate to celebrate with him as invited guests. We will send a White House reporting team to the event and report on it if news warrants,” Now, you know da trumpeter is broken-hearted, right? His response: “Great, and we should boycott Fake News CNN. Dealing with them is a total waste of time!”

She can bake a pie: During Thanksgiving, Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted on Twitter a picture of a pecan pie, and said, “I dont cook much these days, but managed this Chocolate Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving at the family farm!” Because the pie looked a little too perfect, a bit like a stock photo, White House correspondent April Ryan questioned whether she actually baked it herself. Sanders, in one of her rare moments of humour, told Ryan she would bake her one next. No word on whether she kept that promise or not. I’d bet not.